Cold Cases in Cedar Rapids, Iowa

*Please Note: Some of the cases listed below may fall under the Linn County Sheriff’s Office jurisdiction. They are included here for cross-reference purposes. More specific information may be found on each victim’s individual page.

Between 12:15 and 12:30 a.m. on February 19, 1959, Marlene Padfield, 17, left the Kozy Inn restaurant in Cedar Rapids with 18-year-old Arthur Scott, Jr., a part-time Coe College student involved in community theater. Marlene was never seen alive again, and her remains were discovered April 29, 1959, by a farmer traveling an isolated dirt road between Cedar Rapids and Mt. Vernon-Lisbon.

Frederick “Fred” Coste, 47, was found October 15, 1959, lying face-up in a pool of blood inside his loan interview cubicle at the Family Finance Corporation in Cedar Rapids where he worked. He had been punched in the left eye and then stabbed six times in the chest.

The nearly nude body of Geraldine Maggert, 25, of Cedar Rapids was discovered in a wooded ravine near the Coralville reservoir on April 6, 1968. The victim — who was approximately three months pregnant — was last seen alive on Friday, March 22, 1968; and an autopsy showed she died from a beating and exposure.

Paula Jean Oberbroeckling, 18, disappeared after leaving her 116 10th St. NW Cedar Rapids residence in the early morning hours on Saturday, July 11, 1970. Her body was discovered November 29, 1970, in a ravine near the Cedar River six miles from the apartment she shared with Debbie Kellogg.

On Sept. 24, 1971, the body of 17-year-old Mrs. Maureen Farley was found atop the trunk lid of an abandoned car in a wooded ravine near the southwest edge of Cedar Rapids. The Linn County medical examiner ruled Farley had been dead no less than 48 hours and no more than 96 hours.

Lynn Schuller disappeared from her Cedar Rapids home on August 6, 1972. Police suspected murder from the very beginning, but don’t expect to ever find her body. She was legally declared dead on March 20, 1978.

Two days before Wanda Jean Morrow of Cedar Rapids would have celebrated her 15th birthday, a hiker stumbled upon her badly decomposed body in a mountainous region north of Tucson, Arizona. The young teen — found on Mount Lemmon near a campground 30 miles north of Tucson on Sept. 6, 1976 — had died from multiple stab wounds to the back.

Dennis Stastny was reported missing on Tuesday, August 9, 1977, by his mother, Mary White. Two days later, Stastny’s body was pulled from the Cedar River near downtown Cedar Rapids after two young fishermen discovered the body in the west spillway near the F Avenue bridge about 11 a.m.

On the evening of December 19, 1979, police found 18-year-old Michelle Martinko — her face and chest stabbed repeatedly — in her family’s car in the Westdale Mall parking lot. She had been Christmas shopping.

Denise Fraley was reported missing to the Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation on September 12, 1982, by her family. Her husband David had filed for divorce in May 1982 and a judge granted a restraining order prohibiting him from contacting Denise or their child. The child stated she had seen her mother weighted down with rocks and thrown in a river.

Dennis Chaffee, a 33-year-old Vietnam veteran, was shot to death in his Cedar Rapids home on Sunday, July 17, 1983, while his 1-1/2-year-old twin children were in another room. His parents discovered his body Monday evening.

Louis Chambers was shot in the stomach in the 1400 blk. of 5th Ave SE in Cedar Rapids in the early morning hours of February 19, 1994. He died that afternoon at a local hospital of the single gunshot wound.

Two-year-old Rylee Gray died on Christmas Day in 1994 after suffering injuries to her head, buttocks, and extremities two days earlier at the home she shared with her mother, Elise Gray, and Elise’s boyfriend, Matthew Lewis. Lewis was charged with first-degree murder but acquitted by a Linn County District Court jury.

Michael William Reed, 19, of 43 20th Ave. SW in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, died at St. Luke’s Hospital in Cedar Rapids on Friday, April 17, 1998. Reed’s mother, Deb (Peal) Evans, told Iowa Cold Cases that police believed her son’s death was a suicide, but that it was well known around [Cedar Rapids] what really happened to her son. Those involved, Evans said, never have been brought to justice.

On April 5, 1999, the body of Judith Weeks, 44, was found nude from the waist down in the back yard at 1319 Second Ave. SE in Cedar Rapids. Weeks suffered a wound to her forehead caused by a bladed object.

Jamar Magett, 19, of Chicago was shot in the head and chest while standing in the 1400 block of Fifth Avenue SE in Cedar Rapids on May 10, 1999. A Linn County jury acquitted Paul Gilbert, 18, of Cedar Rapids, in the slaying.

Fifteen-year-old Erin Pospisil was last seen in front of a friend’s home in the 1500 block of Second Avenue SE in Cedar Rapids around 8:45 p.m. on Sunday, June 3, 2001. The teen was seen getting into an early ’90s model black Chevrolet Cavalier with tinted rear windows.

Jay Grahlman, 38, and his six-year-old daughter, Jaymie, died from injuries suffered in a late-night fire set at their Cedar Rapids home on Saturday, April 5, 2003. Jaymie suffered brain damage and died Sunday after being removed from life support, and Jay died the following Wednesday morning from burns he’d sustained in the fire.

Anthony Posley, 22, of 3333 Pioneer Ave. SE in Cedar Rapids was shot in the 1600 block of Sixth Avenue SE about 2:27 a.m. on July 23, 2006. He was taken by ambulance to Mercy Medical Center and pronounced dead a short time later.

Dorothy Jenine Rose, 43, was strangled to death inside her southeast Cedar Rapids apartment on or around November 25, 2006. The building’s landlord discovered her decomposing body — an electrical cord still wrapped around her neck — on November 28, 2006. Police said Rose had been dead three to four days.

Aubrey Young, 35, was found shot to death near Redmond Park in Cedar Rapids in the early morning hours of Sunday, June 15, 2008. Investigators found his body, lying face down on the ground, between two parked cars in the 200 block of 16th Street SE. Young had been shot once in the head.

Century Cab Company taxi driver, Cathy Stickley, 54, was stabbed to death on Friday evening, April 29, 2011, in the 1500 block alley between Second and Third avenues SE in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. Johnathan Mitchell was tried and acquitted in her murder.

Matthew John Owen, who went by the name M. John Owen, was found dead on the kitchen floor of his 107 Gas Light Ct. SW home in Cedar Rapids on Friday morning, January 18, 2013. According to Chief State Medical Examiner Dr. Julia Goodin, Owen died of multiple blunt-force injuries.

James Allan “Jim Bob” Booher, 51, of Marion, Iowa, was last seen alive Saturday morning, May 31, 2014, in the 5900 block of Fourth Street SW in Cedar Rapids. His sister, Susie Reynolds, reported him missing June 3, 2014. On Friday, Oct. 17, 2014, Marion Police Lt. Scott Elam said Booher’s disappearance is being treated as a homicide. The Linn County Sheriff’s Office, Cedar Rapids Police Department and Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation have been aiding in the search for Booher.